I was extremely careful. All clothes were washed and sealed in plastic ziplock xxlarge storage bags. All wool (and I collect cashmere vintage and new) was always kept in special clear plastic drawers from the container store, but to be safe I washed all and sealed in 2 gallon ziplocks for months after. All linens etc.. were washed on super hot water, placed in xlarge ziplocks and only taken out as I used them. My mattress and boxspring were placed in dust mite proof bags upon arrival to the new place. The movers helped me do that. I only took one upholstered chair and that was throughly vacuumed and steamed before being placed in a large black bag and sealed with tape and not opened for a month then re vacuumed. My table was vacuumed carefully. I replace all other furniture. In the end I had placed a cashmere scarf, gloves and hat in one of the plastic drawers without cleaning it first and that was the only place I ever found any damage. I threw out those items as they were damaged way beyond saving and cleaned that one drawer and never had a problem again. I have moved again since then and have never had a problem. I do want to say that I owned very little at that time and was able to move in one trip in a large van. I am not an owner of decor items, though I now have several art pieces. I believe that stuff gives the little buggers places to hide. Also another thing about those little holes in cotton t-shirts, I rarely if ever found them in my shirts 6 years ago, it is only now that I find them. My holes are without a doubt, not carpet beetles. Material quality in the past several years has taken a real nose dive. I currently place all my newer shirts in mesh bags when washing them and that is making a difference. Anything I have bought from the Gap is almost guaranteed to have holes after the first wash, so now I don't buy from the Gap. Good luck with getting rid of those nasty carpet beetles.

Welcome to my world!!! I have that problem all the time.I have big legs,and always have had them,and it seems like today they make the socks tighter and tighter.Like you i also tried mens.They were too tight as well.I've got an overflowing drawer full of socks that i need to g thru and get rid of because of this problem. The only ones i found that i can wear with no problem are the guys white tube socks.I don't always like to wear white,as i usually try to match my socks to my pants. Good luck. Kathi

Yeah, clean is the most important thing, especially removing all traces of yellow buildup. A little additional fading, if it occurs, doesn't really matter, since the recipients won't know or likely care what the linens looked like originally...as long as they're clean and odor-free. So I decided to do short washes (i.e. without Intensive) at 95C. Initial program length with cold fill is 1:19, plus 6 minutes for a prewash. Spin balancing adds another couple of minutes. Tide Free & Gentle powder, plus 1/2 tbsp of sodium percarbonate on the two light-colored loads. Everything came out clean and de-yellowed and boil-wash-fresh-smelling, except for a couple of pillowcases which were still yellow. I threw those out. Elastics are ok. Here's everything, showing that colors can survive boil washing: Another question, for bossyvossy and everyone else with experience in this area: Since donation centers want items appropriate for the season, my wife wants to hold onto the flannel sheets until the fall. My feeling is that this isn't like giving them winter coats in the summer. Someone may want flannel sheets now. We're in the Washington DC region. What do you think?

Enduring (and Littlegreeny!), I did a search on enzymes and see many of you have been posting about this for years :) Below is a post from Livebetter. LB had read not to use enzymes on fine cottons .. I didn't see any comments on anyone disagreeing. ? On rare occasions, I've had some linens yellow and a couple of white shirts. Is this from anything I'm doing? I never use bleach. I assume oxygen bleach is safe on everything? livebetter These are the typical enzymes and the type of soil they break down to simpler forms for removal by detergent: Amylase (starch soils) Lipase (fatty and oily soils) Protease (protein soils) Cellulase (reduces pilling and greying of fabrics containing cotton and helps remove particulate soils) I have not read that they will âÂÂdamageâ cotton. They will damage wool/silk as wool/silk are made up of proteins and enzymes attack proteins. Enzyme detergent cannot differentiate between a bit of egg stain and a bit of silk so the enzymes will eat away at it. I have read several places where they say not to use an enzyme detergent for fine cottons like Egyptian and Pima (particularly sheets/towels). I personally think an enzyme detergent is only necessary when the laundry warrants it. If it does not contain the above types of stains why would you need them? ItâÂÂs over kill in my mind. I use a mild detergent without enzymes or brighteners on my fine sheets and towels (Vaska Herbatergent). I also use oxygen bleach when needed to keep them white. Never use chlorine bleach as this will destroy the fibres over time.